Thought Zero – For those who may be wondering, I am still unsure if my other column, The Fantasy Book, will return or not. There will probably be another one relatively soon to discuss the possibility of keeping or discontinuing it. If anyone has any thoughts on it, let me know. But for now, we’re on to some Ring of Honor!
- We start off with a big-time match between Will Ospreay and Jay Lethal. I am still not completely sold on Ospreay’s flippy-flippy high-flying style, but I don’t hate it as much as Vader does. We get some nice counters early on and then Lethal catches Ospreay’s arms as he tries to do a springboard off the ropes and then just yanks Ospreay right out of the ring and into the railing. Lethal then hits three straight dives, with the third knocking Ospreay into the front row.
- Before the commercial break, Marty Scurll comes down the ramp, clapping for Lethal. He heads over to commentary table where he says he won at Final Battle even though he lost because he wanted the old Lethal to come out and he did. Scurll also says he is Lethal’s biggest fan and states that Lethal is the greatest wrestler in the world. It is hard to argue with The Villain on that.
- Lethal hits a couple of the loudest chops I have ever heard on Ospreay’s chest while Scurll laughs and cheers from the commentary table. The match goes back and forth for a while with Ospreay hitting a couple huge dives. Lethal dodges the Os-cutter and then Ospreay counters the Lethal Injection. Ospreay then goes for a Lethal Injection and Lethal catches him in a backbreaker. The backbreaker is called the Lethal Express according to Scurll. Lethal then does a front roll with it which looks awesome.
- The last couple minutes of the match was just amazing. Both Lethal and Ospreay countered everything they could throw at each other. Ospreay countered the Hail to the Chief which Lethal tried to counter with a figure four which Ospreay countered to a small package. The finish came with Lethal countering another Os-cutter attempt with a cutter of his own and then hit a wicked looking Lethal Injection for the victory. Excellent match to start the show.
- Caprice Coleman has Jonathan Gresham on the Pulpit and makes a series of pretty funny short jokes. The very first one is one of the better ones I’ve seen too. Coleman prepped the Pulpit with his chair and a high chair for Gresham. Pretty funny stuff there. Eventually Gresham starts talking about setting up a special rules division or something to work to his strengths since he hasn’t won many matches. But really, this was all about the short jokes.
- Next match is Kenny King versus Brian Milonas. King with early control and after a dive to the outside goes to take a selfie with a fan, but the fan doesn’t have her phone set up properly, so the selfie doesn’t happen. That’s a shame. As the match goes on, Milonas uses the power of the fat to take over, including using the old fat-guy-stepping-on-the-guy move. Milonas misses a fat butt drop and King regains control. King wins with a springboard blockbuster.
- Post-match, King calls out Silas Young, calling him a piece of crap in the process. Because Young is a real man, the Last Real Man in fact, comes right out and the two start brawling. Milonas then jumps King from behind and he, Beer City Bruiser, and Young all beat down the former champ. I guess the Kingpin is now the new 6-man tag partner of Young and Bruiser.
- Back from commercial break and Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, and Scorpio Sky are in the ring. Apparently they are now known as SoCal Uncensored. Joe Koff comes out and threatens to fire everyone in the ring. Kazarian then threatens to kick Koff’s ass. But Daniels calms him down and threatens to go share industry secrets with Don Callis or AJ (Styles), so he better not fire him. Koff says okay, but he won’t renew their contracts after they run out at Final Battle 2018. That is about a year away, so we have quite a long time to build this story up to something interesting.
- Main event time has The Kingdom (with the newly-heavily-pushed Matt Taven) taking on the newly-crowned World champion Dalton Castle and The Boys. TK O’Ryan’s horrible leg injury has really caused him to to fall behind in developing his unique character. Maybe he should change his hair color or something. Vinny Marseglia has really established himself as a horror dude and Taven has been refining himself in CMLL and other places. Also of note, if this is possible, but The Boys are possibly smaller than Cheeseburger. They have slightly better physiques, but look like they are shorter and smaller in stature.
- The Boys do an awful lot of comedy and high flying kick offense before becoming the Boys-in-peril. We also learn that Taven is called himself the King now. Not sure Jerry Lawler would like that. Castle then cleans house to finish. First, Castle hits Taven with a Tombstone piledriver (after both men reversing it about 10 times). Second, Castle hits O’Ryan with a Bang-a-rang. Then, Marseglia gets caught in the Julie Newmar submission move. Marseglia reaches for his axe, yes, his axe, but taps out before he can reach it. The Boys do stereo dives just for the heck of it. And we’re out.
Frankly, the Lethal/Ospreay match should have been the main event, but that’s just picking nits. Another very fine episode of Ring of Honor. Until next week!
